Living Transcendentalism: Phenomenological Ecology and Nature's Wholeness Talk and Workshop
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA
Sat., Oct. 3, 2026, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. 
Living Transcendentalism: Phenomenological Ecology and Nature’s Wholeness
Friday, October 2, 3:30–5:00 pm Opening Talk & Discussion: Imaginative Seeing in Goethe, Coleridge, and Emerson: Pathways to a Phenomenological Ecology
Saturday, October 3, 9:00 am–5:00 pm Workshop: Living Transcendentalism: Phenomenological Ecology and Participating in Nature’s Wholeness
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
The Friday opening talk and discussion is open to all.
Registration for the Saturday workshop includes attendance at both the Friday opening talk and the Saturday workshop. Workshop participation is limited to 15 attendees.
Inspired by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, this two-day workshop invites participants to cultivate a deeper relationship with nature's wholeness. Friday afternoon’s talk introduces the imagination as an organ of participatory knowing. Saturday’s all-day workshop is devoted to attending carefully to plants in their immediate appearances and dynamic ecological relationships. By engaging in precise observation, pencil drawing, and writing practices, participants will explore transcendentalism as a living practice of perception, imagination, and engagement with the more-than-human world.
Ryan Shea is a full-time researcher and educator at The Nature Institute in Ghent, New York. Previously, he taught environmental philosophy, philosophy of science, interdisciplinary humanities, and nature writing at Providence College for eight years. He is also a doctoral researcher with MESH (Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities) at the University of Cologne in Germany.
His research seeks to develop the practice of experiential and participatory ecology, with a focus on metamorphosis in plants and insects. His work is informed by the tradition of Goethean transformative phenomenology—especially the work of Craig Holdrege, Mark Riegner, Henri Bortoft, Jochen Bockemühl, and Andreas Suchantke—which develops new ways of seeing that allow the whole to be directly experienced through the part.
Shea is the editor of The Nature Institute’s in-house publication, In Context, and co-producer of its podcast, In Dialogue with Nature. He also co-edited a recent translation of Goethean biologist Andreas Suchantke’s Insect Forms and Patterns: Exploring the Language of Nature.
Programming Series: Transcendentalism
Gazette Classification: Art/Design, Environmental Sciences
Sponsor: Center for the Study of World Religions
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator, [email protected]
More info: cswr.hds.harvard.edu…